Photoactivated Processes Unit, Imdea Energy Institute, Avda. Ramón de la Sagra, 3, Móstoles, Madrid, 28935, Spain.
NAPP Endstation, CIRCE Beamline, ALBA Synchrotron, Carrer de la Llum 2-26, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, 08290, Spain.
Small. 2022 Sep;18(37):e2201351. doi: 10.1002/smll.202201351. Epub 2022 Aug 15.
Solar energy conversion through photoelectrochemical cells by organic semiconductors is a hot topic that continues to grow due to the promising optoelectronic properties of this class of materials. In this sense, conjugated polymers have raised the interest of researchers due to their interesting light-harvesting properties. Besides, their extended π-conjugation provides them with an excellent charge conduction along the whole structure. In particular, conjugated porous polymers (CPPs) exhibit an inherent porosity and three-dimensional structure, offering greater surface area, and higher photochemical and mechanical stability than their linear relatives (conjugated polymers, CPs). However, CPP synthesis generally provides large particle powders unsuitable for thin film preparation, limiting its application in optoelectronic devices. Here, a synthetic strategy is presented to prepare nanostructures of a CPP suitable to be used as photoelectrode in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell. In this way, electronic and photoelectrochemical properties are measured and, attending to the optoelectronic properties, two hybrid photoelectrodes (photoanode and photocathode) are designed and built to assemble a tandem PEC cell. The final device exhibits photocurrents of 0.5 mA cm at a 0.7 V in the two electrode configuration and the hydrogen evolution reaction is observed and quantified by gas chromatography, achieving 581 µmol of H in a one-hour reaction.
通过有机半导体的光电化学电池进行太阳能转换是一个热门话题，由于这类材料具有有前途的光电性能，这个话题持续增长。在这个意义上，由于其有趣的光捕获特性，共轭聚合物引起了研究人员的兴趣。此外，其扩展的π共轭赋予了它们沿着整个结构的优异电荷传导能力。特别是，共轭多孔聚合物（CPP）具有固有孔隙率和三维结构，提供了更大的表面积，并且比其线性对应物（共轭聚合物，CP）具有更高的光化学和机械稳定性。然而，CPP 的合成通常提供不适合薄膜制备的大颗粒粉末，限制了其在光电设备中的应用。在这里，提出了一种合成策略来制备适用于光电化学（PEC）电池光电电极的 CPP 纳米结构。通过这种方式，测量了电子和光电化学性质，并根据光电性质设计和构建了两个混合光电极（光电阳极和光阴极）以组装串联 PEC 电池。最终的器件在两个电极配置下表现出 0.5 mA cm 的光电流，在 0.7 V 时，通过气相色谱观察到并量化了析氢反应，在一小时的反应中实现了 581 µmoles 的 H。
